Wills, Trusts, and Estate Services
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Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning
Do you know what will happen to your loved ones – especially minor children – and your property after you're gone? Make a plan for the future with a will, trust, or estate planning service from Ventresca & Ventresca, LLP. To find out more about these and other valuable legal documents and services, call (724) 940-5901
today.
Reasons You Need a Will
- Upon your death, passes the title of your property to your intended beneficiaries (spouse, children, grandchildren, etc.)
- Appoints a guardian for your minor children so the court doesn't decide for you
- Saves money when it comes to death and transfer taxes
Durable General Power of Attorney
- Names your designated agent to act for you in all business, personal, and financial matters
- Is valid in the event that you become incapacitated and avoids the time-consuming, costly, and emotionally draining process of having someone appointed
- If you’re unavailable, it allows someone to act for you to sell your home or cash out bank or brokerage accounts
Healthcare Power of Attorney or Living Will
A healthcare power of attorney appoints an individual to act for you to authorize or withhold treatment and to make other medical treatment decisions for you if you're incapacitated and can't make those decisions yourself.
A living will communicates your wishes regarding extraordinary treatment if you are:
- Incapacitated
- Imminently terminal
- Without significant hope for recovery
Trusts
A trust is a written legal document prepared with the assistance of your attorney. In the trust, a person or entity called a trustee holds and manages property according to written instructions you set forth for a beneficiary or class of beneficiaries. Trusts benefit children or other minor beneficiaries to hold property, either for a certain period of time or for that beneficiary's lifetime.
Trusts provide advantages for a surviving spouse to hold property so that it passes to children after the surviving spouse’s death. Trusts also help to reduce, minimize, and/or eliminate federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes – as well as income taxes in certain applications.
Estate Administration and Probate
We provide cost-efficient, effective settlement services for a decedent’s estate in probate, the process by which property owned solely by the decedent passes in an orderly fashion to the beneficiaries listed in the decedent’s will after all just debts and taxes are paid. This type of property is known as probate property.
The presence of a will, coupled with the probate process, doesn't govern non-probate property, property which had two or more owners jointly or property which has a beneficiary designated other than the decedent’s estate. Examples include the bank account of a joint tenant with right of survivorship, a life insurance policy naming a spouse or children as beneficiary(ies), or a retirement account naming a spouse or children as beneficiary(ies).
Because these two types of property differ in how they're passed to intended beneficiaries, it is important that the ownership and beneficiary designations of each asset owned be examined individually to ensure that the property will pass to such intended beneficiaries.
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